The Super Bowl champion traditionally hosts the first game of the NFL season on the Thursday before the first weekend of games, and since the Browns play the Patriots in Foxborough, Mass., in 2019, Peter King of NBC Sports suggests a Browns-Patriots matchup to get the next season going.

The obvious hook for NFL fans would be the Offensive Rookie of the Year runner-up and 2018 first-overall pick Mayfield vs. the player most regard as the best quarterback in NFL history in Brady — the new wave vs. the standard bearer of quarterbacks.

Opponents for all teams in 2019 were set the day the 2018 season ended, but the NFL makes a big deal out of waiting until April to announce the schedule for the upcoming season.

The Patriots, always a prime-time plum for television networks, also host the Chiefs and Cowboys in 2019. NBC will fight hard to get both games on "Sunday Night Football," which long ago usurped "Monday Night Football" as the showcase game for the NFL.

A Browns-Patriots opener would be intriguing. Facing the Super Bowl champs would like taking a final exam for Freddie Kitchens in his first test as Browns head coach.

The Browns were 7-8-1 in 2018. It was their best record since 2007, when they were 10-6 and, after finishing 0-16 in 2017, their best one-year improvement in Browns history. Mayfield engineered all seven victories after replacing Tyrod Taylor late in the first half of the third game.

Mayfield was 6 when Brady led the Patriots to their first Super Bowl championship on Feb. 3, 2002. He was 5 when the Patriots selected Brady with the 199th pick of the 2000 draft, 16 picks after the Browns drafted quarterback Spergon Wynn.

A brief scene in the two-minute commercial celebrating 100 years of the NFL that aired during the Super Bowl shows Brady and Mayfield sitting at a formal dinner with past and present stars while chaos is breaking out around them. “Get out there, old man,” Mayfield tells Brady as Brady watches the commotion. Brady looks at Mayfield. Brady is wearing his five Super Bowl Rings (now he has six) on his right hand. He removes them and tells Mayfield, “Hold these” and dashes away, presumably into the fray. Mayfield looks at what he holds in the palm of his hand and smiles.

Mayfield has always used “no respect” as motivation. He was a walk-on at Texas Tech and a walk-on at Oklahoma and ended up winning the Heisman Trophy. He had his critics before the draft. But Browns general manager John Dorsey ignored those critics and took Mayfield first overall in the draft last April.

Now Mayfield has being snubbed in the AP Rookie of the Year voting to motivate him. The award instead went to Giants running back Saquon Barkley (who also is in the Football 100 commercial).

Mayfield set an NFL rookie record by throwing 27 touchdown passes, breaking the record of 26 set by Peyton Manning in 1998. Manning set it in 16 games. Mayfield broke it in 13 1/2 games.

It isn’t that Barkley wasn’t worthy of the award. He finished third in the league with 1,307 rushing yards, and rushed for 11 touchdowns. He finished 13th in receptions with 91 catches for 721 yards and four touchdowns.

If not being recognized as Rookie of the Year fuels Mayfield, so be it. But the chip on his shoulder is a toothpick to the log Brady once had on his own shoulder from watching 198 players drafted ahead of him in 2000.

Scheduling the Browns at New England in prime time on Sept. 5 for the first game of the season would provide plenty of storylines.

Plus, playing New England out of the gate might be an advantage for the Browns. The Patriots often start slowly and save their best for last. They won the Super Bowl in the 2016 season and lost their 2017 regular season opener, 42-27 to the Chiefs. The won their opener in 2018 and then lost their next two games.

The Browns won their 2004 opener and lost every opener since then. They don’t follow New England’s pattern of picking up steam and charging into the playoffs. But the season ahead will be the first with Baker Mayfield in charge from the beginning.